[quote]xfactor3236 wrote:
i believe it. i am a democrat and probably always will be, but the older i get and the stronger i get, i find my self agreeing with and sympathizing with more and more conservative ideals. for example, the whole occupy wallstreet 1% shit. not that the ideas behind it were all that wrong or awful, but something about the uninformed sheep mentality pisses me off more and more as i get older. Here in tucson we got the Univeridty of Arizona and close by is 4th Avenue, a hippie-hipster meca for douschbaggery. And it seems younger kids, especially college kids, join movements for the sake of joining movements, for the sake of rebelling and believing the world is out to get them. I find the older i get, the less i care about peoples particular beliefs, and more in the strength in which the follow their beliefs. I may not always agree with conservatives, but i do admire the strength in their convictions. [/quote]
Hmmmmm, for me it is the opposite. In my teens & twentys I was a young Republican, & very active in the church. These days, while I may have been in better “shape” back then, I’m much stronger, yet Obama is not liberal enough for me (I wanted Hilary). I’m in my 40’s, employed, own my own home (paid off!)2 young children. . . could not imagine voting Republican.[/quote]
I was once a true blue conservative. Would listen to Rush and actually agree with 95% of what he said. I belonged to the Conservative Book Club would watch The Firing Line every Sunday in place of football. Gave to conservative "think tanks, had subscriptions to National Review, The American Spectator and other rags. It wasn’t until I read the people I wasn’t supposed to read and made more keen observations that I began to realize I was played for a fool. Brainwashed by propaganda and voting against my own self-economic interest was the oder of a decade. My how times have changed. Thank God I’m not part of the sheep anymore…
Russell Kirk names Roosevelt as one of ten exemplary conservatives. “The Politics of Prudence,” page 72-3.[/quote]
Kirk also expressed a favourable opinion of Woodrow Wilson. Additionally, this is what he had to say of Teddy in the Conservative Mind:
‘Theodore Roosevelt, young or old, stood chiefly for expansion and Teddy, as Henry Adams said; Cleveland really had been a better conservative.’ - page 417
Kirk also expressed a favourable opinion of Woodrow Wilson. Additionally, this is what he had to say of Teddy in the Conservative Mind:
‘Theodore Roosevelt, young or old, stood chiefly for expansion and Teddy, as Henry Adams said; Cleveland really had been a better conservative.’ - page 417[/quote]
How does any of that change the fact that Kirk named TR as an “exemplary conservative”?
TR had been in the eye of the storm of massive changes to social and civic life caused by the least conservative force in human history: the Industrial Revolution.
What would you call a man that tried to conserve and preserve and balance cultural patrimony, social order, and the Old Ways against the untried, untested, radical transformation that was changing society and shredding tradition in favor of experimentation?
How does any of that change the fact that Kirk named TR as an “exemplary conservative”?
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It doesn’t. But it goes some way to substantiating my assertion that he was a big government type.
Agreed. I will change my stance and say that Teddy was not as conservative as I once thought he was. Also bear in mind that Kirk believed that American conservatism had not evolved into a coherent ideology until after The Second World War when traditional conservatives, libertarians and anti-Communists formed a political alliance.
Okay. But I still say Grover Cleveland was more conservative than Teddy.